Report into Air Asia flight QZ535 found pressurization system to blame

Geoffrey ThomasThe West Australian

Wednesday, 22 November 2017 8:58AM

Camera IconThe Air Asia plane that had to return to Perth due to loss of cabin pressure.Picture: Megan Powell

Australia’s crash investigator has found an AirAsia flight that was forced to return to Perth after making an emergency descent had a series of problems and failures with the pressurization system.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau issued its interim report on Wednesday into the October 15 incident where passengers claim cabin crew panicked and made the situation worse by screaming “emergency emergency”.

AirAsia flight QZ535 was on its way to Bali from Perth and had started climbing from 24,000ft to its initial cruise altitude of 34,000ft when problems emerged.

At 30,000ft another cockpit warning illuminated that the pressurisation system safety valve was opening. The pressurisation system keeps the cabin altitude – and thus oxygen level - at around 8000ft while the aircraft is flying much higher.

Air Asia under fire for third incident in less than five months.

The West Australian

VideoAir Asia under fire for third incident in less than five months.

The flight crew selected manual control but the problems with the system persisted and the cabin crew noted intermittent activations of the cabin seat belt signs and emergency lighting.

The ATSB said the pilots then informed the cabin crew manager that they were going to conduct an emergency descent to 10,000ft, donned their emergency oxygen masks and started the descent.

“Shortly after, the cabin crew manager reported to the flight crew that the emergency oxygen masks in the cabin were not deployed and the flight crew then manually deployed them.

“The cabin crew reported that they secured the cabin and instructed the passengers in accordance with their emergency descent procedures,” the ATSB said.

The descent by the pilots was conducted as per standard procedures.

The ATSB which is still collecting data on the incident made no comment about the cabin crews handling of the incident which came under fire last month with reports that their response was one of panic.

Camera IconThe Air Asia plane that had to return to Perth due to loss of cabin pressure.Picture: Megan Powell

Passengers said cabin crew made the ordeal worse by their panicked response.

“The panic was escalated because of the behaviour of staff who were screaming, looked tearful and shocked,’’ passenger Clare Askew told Seven News.

“Now I get it, but we looked to them for reassurance and we didn’t get any, we were more worried because of how panicked they were.”

Another passenger, Mark Bailey, said the cabin crew started screaming “emergency emergency”.

“They just went hysterical,” he said. “There was no real panic before that but then everyone panicked.”

Perth woman Leah told media passengers were kept in the dark about the emergency.

“One of the stewardesses started running down the aisle and we thought, why is she running,” she said. “And then the masks fell down and everybody started panicking.